Driving initial engagement with pension schemes can be particularly challenging when relying solely on traditional channels like email, research from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has revealed.

The ‘Occasional Paper 65: Is timing of the essence? Testing when to engage UK pension customers’ report found that although approximately 42 to 55 per cent of customers opened emails, only one to seven per cent proceeded to click on the ‘call-to-action' links.

The report also found that older customers were more likely to engage overall as open rates ranged from 42 to 45 per cent for individuals under 50, whereas 51 to 55 per cent of individuals over 50 opened the email.

As with open rates, click rates were higher among individuals over 50 ranging from 3 to 4 per cent, compared to two per cent for individuals under 50.

However, older customers spent less time interacting with the website linked in the email.

While time spent on the site was minimal for both groups, the median time spent on the site for those under 50 was around three minutes. In comparison, those over 50 spent around two minutes on the site.

Emails at key life points, such as milestone birthdays, new year's day, two years before retirement or the anniversary of a pension, were not particularly effective at increasing engagement overall.

In addition, the report found it was difficult to drive downstream engagement behaviour, such as logging back into one’s online, using a traditional communication channel like email.

As a result, the report determined it is difficult to encourage people to engage with their pensions through email alone. Therefore, the FCA recommended that firms explore innovative approaches to communicating with consumers about their pensions.

It also suggested pre-testing communications to ensure that pension providers and other firms maximise their impact and avoid unintentionally discourage customers.

Following up with consumers who are already somewhat engaged with their pensions, including those who had recently logged into their online pension account, can also be effective in driving further engagement and encouraging the use of guidance services.

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